Curie upvoted my post - Here's the backstory.

Yesterday I got an upvote from @curie on one of my posts. At least that's what they told me. And I didn't even know what Curie was. It sounded like a nice woman.

When I found out who she was, my heart jumped, and yesterdays post got boosted in a way that I could have never imagined.

I wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you and shortly share that I was actually very close to quitting Steemit.

Last week, something interesting happened, it came very subtly. I wasn't even aware of it. All I knew, that last week the fun and joy of creating slowly dissipated.

Things appeared more stiff in my life. Problems seemed to show up wherever I turned my head. Writing seemed to be harder. I struggled to find inspiration. And I really felt I needed a break. Some quiet time...

...and on Saturday, I somehow realized that perhaps, I took myself a bit too seriously.

After all; Who am I, as Sam, to think that the world only spins around me. Pretty silly. Yet pretty common way of thinking. 

The result: It transformed lightness into stress, that joy into fear and the creativity into hard work. It took me a few days to work through this. And perhaps to grow up and learn.

I can't force creativity. Neither can I force the joy for life.

Somewhere I read; Angels fly, because they take themselves lightly.

It seems if I choose not to force, but to simply create. With fun, with a joy, with the willingness to completely mess it up - creativity seems to flush through me. Why? Because, to me, art has always been about breaking the rules of the mind.

(It sometimes feels like breaking through the prison of limitations. And whatever love means to you, to me it's something limitless.)

Slow down to speed up

So I decided to play again. And simply have the willingness to mess things up... I showed that in my writings and it felt so liberating.

How interesting, that at the moment, I choose to let go of any outcome, and just create and share from my heart again, the energy flushed back into my life. My posts get upvoted. A success is achieved... 

...And all that mattered to me was still to simply create something beautiful.

How fascinating life sometimes plays. It rewards me for being me. 

I believe this is not only related to writing and creativity. But also in relationships and all other areas of life. 

Regarding writing on Steemit: I know that most of the posts are not recognised at all, even if the content is way better than its recognition shows. It can be a hard way upstairs. 

Yet those are factors we can't really control much. But there's something else I believe we can control: To share from the bottom of our hearts - without trying to get anything in return - and to create honest, authentic, meaningful content. 

Because, at least to me, that gives me joy, and as soon as that happens, I already achieved my goal. And maybe we will be rewarded once. Maybe not... but at the end... What does really matter?

Wishing you a great rest of the week!

Sam

(image by: @curie)